Jakarta’s Cat Problem
Numbering as many as 1.5 million by some counts-about one for every ten human inhabitants of the sprawling Indonesian capital-street cats are ubiquitous and, for the most part, doted on. “Cats are there to neutralize negative auras and to cheer you up,” 33-year-old vendor Saiful Faizin told AFP. He gives the strays water and leftovers from his chicken porridge cart and plays tenderly with the little ones. And though Jakarta has boasted rabies-free status since 2004, partly thanks to
mass vaccination of strays-cats, they can transfer other bugs or parasites to humans.”Some people don’t realize that giving food for the cats without spaying or neutering them can cause another problem, which is overpopulation,” Carolina Fajar of the Let’s Adopt Indonesia NGO told AFP at a sterilization drive in the park. “They keep mating, they keep having babies, and the population is increasing exponentially,” she said as volunteers stuffed cats into baskets by the dozens. With no government department dedicated to domestic animal welfare, stray cat numbers in Jakarta have exploded over the years. Let’s Adopt Indonesia, which spayed and neutered 2,274 cats in Jakarta last year, receives money from private donors and overseas foundations to cover the sterilization costs. (Jakarta Post)